LETTER XXI.

MAKAUELI, KAUAI.

AFTER my letters from Hawaii, and their narratives of
volcanoes, freshets, and out of the world valleys, you will think my present
letters dull, so I must begin this one pleasantly, by telling you that though I
have no stirring adventures to relate, I am enjoying myself and improving again
in health, and that the people are hospitable, genial, and cultivated, and that
Kauai, though altogether different from Hawaii, has an extreme beauty altogether
its own, which wins one's love, though it does not startle one into admiration
like that of the Hawaiian gulches. Is it because that, though the magic of
novelty is over it, there is a perpetual undercurrent of home resemblance? The
dash of its musical waters might be in Cumberland; its swelling uplands, with
their clumps of trees, might be in Kent; and then again, steep, broken, wooded
ridges, with glades of grass, suggest the Val Moutiers; and broader sweeps of
mountain outline, the finest scenery of the Alleghanies.

But yet the very things which have a certain tenderness of familiarity, are in a
foreign setting. The great expanse of restful sea, so faintly blue all day, and
so faintly red in the late afternoon, is like no other ocean
page: 300 in its unutterable peace; and this joyous, riotous
trade-wind, which rustles the trees all day, and falls asleep at night, and
cools the air, seems to come from some widely different laboratory than that in
which our vicious east winds, and damp west winds, and piercing north winds, and
suffocating south winds are concocted. Here one cannot ride “into the teeth of a
north-easter,” for such the trade-wind really is, without feeling at once
invigorated, and wrapped in an atmosphere of balm. It is not here so tropical
looking as in Hawaii, and though there are not the frightful volcanic
wildernesses which make a thirsty solitude in the centre of that island, neither
are there those bursts of tropical luxuriance which make every gulch an epitome
of Paradise: I really cannot define the difference, for here, as there, palms
glass themselves in still waters, bananas flourish, and the forests are green
with ferns.

We took three days for our journey of twenty-three miles from Koloa, the we,
consisting of Mrs. —, the widow of an early missionary teacher, venerable in
years and character, a native boy of ten years old, her squire, a second Kaluna,
without Kaluna's good qualities, and myself. Mrs. — is not a bold horsewoman,
and preferred to keep to a foot's pace, which fretted my ambitious animal, whose
innocent antics alarmed her in turn. We only rode seven miles the first day,
through a park-like region, very like Western Wisconsin, and just like what I
expected and failed to find in New Zealand. Grass-land much tumbled about, the
turf very fine and green, dotted over with clumps and single trees, with
page: 301 picturesque, rocky hills, deeply cleft by
water-courses were on our right, and on our left the green slopes blended with
the flushed, stony soil near the sea, on which indigo and various composite are
the chief vegetation. It was hot, but among the hills on our right, cool clouds
were coming down in frequent showers, and the white foam of cascades gleamed
among the ohias, whose dark foliage at a
distance has almost the look of pine woods.

Our first halting place was one of the prettiest places I ever saw, a buff
frame-house, with a deep verandah festooned with passion flowers, two or three
guest houses also bright with trailers, scattered about under the trees near it,
a pretty garden, a background of grey rocky hills cool with woods and ravines,
and over all the vicinity, that air of exquisite trimness which is artificially
produced in England, but is natural here.

Kaluna the Second soon showed symptoms of being troublesome. The native servants
were away, and he was dull, and for that I pitied him. He asked leave to go back
to Koloa for a “sleeping tapa,” which was refused, and either out of spite or
carelessness, instead of fastening the horses into the pasture, he let them go,
and the following morning when we were ready for our journey they were lost.
Then he borrowed a horse, and late in the afternoon returned with the four
animals, who were all white with foam and dust, and this escapade detained us
another night. Subsequently, after disobeying orders, he lost his horse, which
was a borrowed one, deserted his mistress, and absconded!

page: 302

The slopes over which we travelled were red, hot, and stony, cleft in one place
however, by a green, fertile valley, full of rice and kalo patches, and native houses, with a broad river, the
Hanapépé, flowing quietly down the middle, which we forded near the sea, where
it was half-way up my horse's sides. After plodding all day over stony soil in
the changeless sunshine, as the shadows lengthened, we turned directly up
towards the mountains and began a two hours ascent. It was delicious. They were
so cool, so green, so varied, their grey pinnacles so splintered, their
precipices so abrupt, their ravines so dark and deep, and their lower slopes
covered with the greenest and finest grass; then dark ohias rose singly, then in twos and threes, and finally mixed in
dense forest masses, with the pea-green of the kukui.

It became yet lovelier as the track wound through deep wooded ravines, or snaked
along the narrow tops of spine-like ridges; the air became cooler, damper, and
more like elixir, till at a height of 1500 feet we came upon Makaueli, ideally
situated upon an unequalled natural plateau, a house of patriarchal size for the
islands, with a verandah festooned with roses, fuchsias, the water lemon, and
other passion flowers, and with a large guest-house attached. It stands on a
natural lawn, with abrupt slopes, sprinkled with orange trees burdened with
fruit, ohias, and hibiscus. From the back
verandah the forest-covered mountains rise, and in front a deep ravine widens to
the grassy slopes below and the lonely Pacific,—as I write, a golden sea, on
which the island of Niihau, eighteen miles distant, floats like an amethyst.

page: 303

The solitude is perfect. Except the “quarters” at the back, I think there is not
a house, native or foreign, within six miles, though there are several hundred
natives on the property. Birds sing in the morning, and the trees rustle
throughout the day; but in the cool evenings the air is perfectly still, and the
trickle of a stream is the only sound.

The house has the striking novelty of a chimney, and there is a fire all day long
in the dining-room.

I must now say a little about my hosts and try to give you some idea of them. I
heard their history from Mr. Damon, and thought it too strange to be altogether
true until it was confirmed by themselves.* The venerable lady at the head of the house emigrated from Scotland
to New Zealand many years ago, where her husband was unfortunately drowned, and
she being left to bring up a large family, and manage a large property, was
equally successful with both. Her great ambition was to keep her family
together, something on the old patriarchal system; and when her children grew
up, and it seemed as if even their very extensive New Zealand property was not
large enough for them, she sold it, and embarking her family and moveable
possessions on board a clipper-ship, owned and commanded by one of her
sons-in-law, they sailed through the Pacific in search of a home where they
could remain together.

They were strongly tempted by Tahiti, but some

* These circumstances are well-known throughout
the islands, and with the omission of some personal details, there is
nothing which may not be known by a larger public.

page: 304 reasons having decided them against it, they sailed
northwards and put into Honolulu. Mr. Damon, who was seaman's chaplain, on going
down to the wharf one day, was surprised to find their trim barque, with this
immense family party on board, with a beautiful and brilliant old lady at its
head, books, pictures, work, and all that could add refinement to a floating
home, about them, and cattle and sheep of valuable breeds in pens on deck. They
then sailed for British Columbia, but were much disappointed with it, and in
three months they re-appeared at Honolulu, much at a loss regarding their future
prospects.

The island of Niihau was then for sale, and in a very short time they purchased
it of Kamehameha V. for a ridiculously low price, and taking their wooden houses
with them, established themselves for seven years. It is truly isolated, both by
a heavy surf and a disagreeable sea passage, and they afterwards bought this
beautiful and extensive property, made a road, and built the house. Only the
second son and his wife live now on Niihau, where they are the only white
residents among 350 natives. It has an area of 70,000 acres, and could sustain a
far larger number of sheep than the 20,000 now upon it. It is said that the
transfer of the island involved some hardships, owing to a number of the natives
having neglected to legalise their claims to their kuleanas, but the present possessors have made themselves
thoroughly acquainted with the language, and take the warmest interest in the
island population. Niilhau is famous for its very fine mats, and for necklaces
of shells
page: 305 six yards long, as well as for the
extreme beauty and variety of the shells which are found there.

The household here consists first and foremost of its head, Mrs. —, a lady of the
old Scotch type, very talented, bright, humorous, charming, with a definite
character which impresses its force upon everybody; beautiful in her old age,
disdaining that servile conformity to prevailing fashion which makes many old
people at once ugly and contemptible: speaking English with a slight,
old-fashioned, refined Scotch accent, which gives naïveté to everything she
says, up to the latest novelty in theology and politics: devoted to her children
and grandchildren, the life of the family, and though upwards of seventy, the
first to rise, and the last to retire in the house. She was away when I came,
but some days afterwards rode up on horseback, in a large drawn silk bonnet,
which she rarely lays aside, as light in her figure and step as a young girl,
looking as if she had walked out of an old picture, or one of Dean Ramsay's
books.

Then there are her eldest son, a bachelor, two widowed daughters with six
children between them, three of whom are grown up young men, and a tutor, a
young Prussian officer, who was on Maximilian's staff up to the time of the
Queretaro disaster, and is still suffering from Mexican barbarities. The
remaining daughter is married to a Norwegian gentleman, who owns and resides on
the next property. So the family is together, and the property is large enough
to give scope to the grandchildren as they require it.

They are thoroughly Hawaiianised. The young people
page: 306 all speak Hawaiian as easily as English, and the
three young men, who are superb young fellows, about six feet high, not only
emulate the natives in feats of horsemanship, such as throwing the lasso, and
picking up a coin while going at full gallop, but are surf-board riders, an art
which it has been said to be impossible for foreigners to acquire.

The natives on Niihau and in this part of Kauai, call Mrs. — “Mama.” Their rent
seems to consist in giving one or more days' service in a month, so it is a
revival of the old feudality. In order to patronise native labour, my hosts
dispense with a Chinese, and employ a native cook, and native women come in and
profess to do some of the housework, but it is a very troublesome arrangement,
and ends in the ladies doing all the finer cooking, and superintending the
coarser, setting the table, trimming the lamps, cutting out and “fixing” all the
needlework, besides planning the indoor and outdoor work which the natives are
supposed to do. Having related their proficiency in domestic duties, I must add
that they are splendid horsewomen, one of them an excellent shot, and the other
has enough practical knowledge of seamanship, as well as navigation, to enable
her to take a ship round the world! It is a busy life, owing to the large number
of natives daily employed, and the necessity of looking after the native
lunas, or overseers. Dr. Smith at Koloa,
twenty-two miles off, is the only doctor on the island, and the natives resort
to this house in great numbers for advice and medicine in their many ailments.
It is much such a life as people lead at
page: 307
Ramsay, Applecross, or some other remote Highland place, only that people who
come to visit here, unless they ride twenty-two miles, must come to the coast in
the Jenny instead of being conveyed by one of David Hutcheson's
luxurious steamers. If the Clansman were “put on,” probably the
great house would not contain the strangers who would arrive!

We were sitting in the library one morning when Mr. M., of Timaru, N.Z., rode up
with an introduction, and was of course cordially welcomed. He goes on to
England, where you will doubtless cross-question him concerning my statements.
During his visit a large party of us made a delightful expedition to the
Hanapépé Falls, one of the “lions” of Kauai. It is often considered too “rough”
for ladies, and when Mrs. — and I said we were going, I saw Mr. M. look as if he
thought we should be a dependent nuisance; I was amused afterwards with his
surprise at Mrs. —'s courageous horsemanship, and at his obvious confusion as to
whether he should help us, which question he wisely decided in the negative.

If “happiness is atmosphere,” we were surely happy. The day was brilliant, and as
cool as early June at home, but the sweet, joyous trade-wind could not be brewed
elsewhere than on the Pacific. The scenery was glorious, and mountains, trees,
frolicsome water, and scarlet birds, all rioted as if in conscious happiness.
Existence was a luxury, and reckless riding a mere outcome of the animal spirits
of horses and riders, and the thud of the shoeless feet as the
horses galloped over the soft grass was sweeter than music. I could hardly hold
my horse at all, and
page: 308 down hills as steep as
the east side of Arthur's Seat, over knife-like ridges too narrow for two to
ride abreast, and along side-tracks only a foot wide, we rode at full gallop,
till we pulled up at the top of a descent of 2,000 feet with a broad, rapid
river at its feet, emerging from between colossal walls of rock to girdle a
natural lawn of the bright manienie grass.
There had been a “drive” of horses, and numbers of these, with their picturesque
saddles, were picketed there, while their yet more picturesque, scarlet-shirted
riders lounged in the sun.

It was a difficult two hours' ride from thence to the Falls, worthy of Hawaii,
and since my adventures in the Hilo gulches I cannot cross running water without
feeling an amount of nervousness which I can conceal, but cannot reason myself
out of. In going and returning, we forded the broad, rugged river twenty-six
times, always in water up to my horse's girths, and the bottom was so rocky and
full of holes, and the torrent so impetuous, that the animals floundered badly
and evidently disliked the whole affair. Once it had been possible to ride along
the edge, but the river had torn away what there was of margin in a freshet, so
that we had to cross perpetually, to attain the rough, boulder-strewn strips
which lay between the cliffs and itself. Sometimes we rode over roundish
boulders like those on the top of Ben Cruachan, or like those of the landing at
Iona, and most of those under the rush of the bright foaming water were covered
with a silky green weed, on which the horses slipped alarmingly. My companions
always took the lead, and by the time that each of their horses had
page: 309 struggled, slipped, and floundered in and out of
holes, and breasted and leapt up steep banks, I was ready to echo Mr. M.'s
exclamation regarding Mrs. —, “I never saw such riding; I never saw ladies with
such nerve.” I certainly never saw people encounter such difficulties for the
sake of scenery. Generally, a fall would be regarded as practically inaccessible
which could only be approached in such a way.

I will not inflict another description of similar scenery upon you, but this,
though perhaps exceeding all others in beauty, is not only a type, perhaps the
finest type, of a species of cañon very common
on these islands, but is also so interesting geologically that you must tolerate
a very few words upon it.

The valley for two or three miles from the sea is nearly level, very fertile, and
walled in by palis 250 feet high, much grooved
vertically, and presenting fine layers of conglomerate and grey basalt; and the
Hanapépé winds quietly through the region which it fertilises, a stream several
hundred feet wide, with a soft, smooth bottom. But four miles inland the bed
becomes rugged and declivitous, and the mountain walls close in, forming a most
magnificent cañon from 1,000 to 2,500 feet
deep. Other cañons of nearly equal beauty
descend to swell the Hanapépé with their clear, cool, tributaries, and there are
“meetings of the waters” worthier of verse than those of Avoca. The walls are
broken and highly fantastic, narrowing here, receding there, their
strangely-arched. recesses festooned with the feathery trichomanes, their
Clustering columns and broken buttresses suggesting
page: 310 some old-world minster, and their stately tiers of
columnar basalt rising one above another in barren grey into the far-off blue
sky. The river in carving out the gorge so grandly has most energetically
removed all rubbish, and even the tributaries of the lateral cañons do not accumulate any “wash” in the main
bed. The walls as a rule rise clear from the stream, which, besides its lateral
tributaries, receives other contributions in the form of waterfalls, which hurl
themselves into it from the cliffs in one leap.

After ascending it for four miles all further progress was barred by a pali which curves round from the right, and closes
the chasm with a perpendicular wall, over which the Hanapépé precipitates itself
from a height of 326 feet, forming the Koula Falls. At the summit is a very fine
entablature of curved columnar basalt, resembling the clam shell cave at Staffa,
and two high, sharp, and impending peaks on the other side form a stately
gateway for a stream which enters from another and broader valley; but it is but
one among many small cascades, which round the arc of the falls flash out in
foam among the dark foliage, and contribute their tiny warble to the diapason of
the waterfall. It rewards one well for penetrating the deep gash which has been
made into the earth. It seemed so very far away from all buzzing, frivolous, or
vexing things, in the cool, dark abyss into which only the noon-day sun
penetrates. All beautiful things which love damp; all exquisite, tender ferns
and mosses; all shade-loving parasites flourish there in perennial beauty. And
high above in the sunshine, the
page: 311 pea-green
candle-nut struggles with the dark ohia for
precarious roothold on rocky ledges, and dense masses of Eugenia, aflame with
crimson flowers, and bananas, and all the leafy wealth born of heat and damp
fill up the clefts which fissure the pali.
Every now and then some scarlet tropic bird flashed across the shadow, but it
was a very lifeless and a very silent scene. The arches, buttresses, and columns
suggest a temple, and the deep tone of the fall is as organ music. It is all
beauty, solemnity, and worship.

It was sad to leave it and to think how very few eyes can ever feast themselves
on its beauty. We came back again into gladness and sunshine, and to the vulgar
necessity of eating, which the natives ministered to by presenting us with a
substantial meal of stewed fowls and sweet potatoes at the nearest shanty. There
must have been something intoxicating in the air, for we rode wildly and
recklessly, galloping down steep hills (which on principle I object to), and
putting our horses to their utmost speed. Mine ran off with me several times,
and once nearly upset Mr. M.'s horse, as he probably will tell you.

The natives annoy me everywhere by their inhumanity to their horses. To-day I
became an object of derision to them for hunting for sow-thistles, and bringing
back a large bundle of them to my excellent animal. They starve their horses
from mere carelessness or laziness, spur them mercilessly, when the jaded,
famished things almost drop from exhaustion, ride them with great sores under
the saddles, and with their bodies deeply cut with
page: 312 the rough girths; and though horses are not regarded
as more essential in any part of the world, they neglect and maltreat them in
every way, and laugh scornfully if one shows any consideration for them. Except
for short shopping distances in Honolulu, I have never seen a native man or
woman walking. They think walking a degradation, and I have seen men take the
trouble to mount horses to go 100 yards.

I have no time to tell you of a three days' expedition which five of us made into
the heart of the nearer mountainous district, attended by some mounted natives.
Mr. K., from whose house we started, has the finest mango grove on the islands.
It is a fine foliaged tree, but is everywhere covered with a black blight, which
gives the groves the appearance of being in mourning, as the tough, glutinous
film covers all the older leaves. The mango is an exotic fruit, and people think
a great deal of it, and send boxes of mangoes as presents to their friends. It
is yellow, with a reddish bloom, something like a magnum bonum plum, three times
magnified. The only way of eating it in comfort is to have a tub of water beside
you. It should be eaten in private by any one who wants to retain the admiration
of his friends. It has an immense stone, and a disproportionately small pulp. I
think it tastes strongly of turpentine at first, but this is a heresy.

Beyond Waielva and its mango groves there is a very curious sand bank about 60
feet high, formed by wind and currents, and of a steep, uniform angle from top
to bottom. It is very coarse sand, composed of shells, coral,
page: 313 and lava. When two handfuls are slapped together, a
sound like the barking of a dog ensues, hence its name, the Barking Sands. It is
a common amusement with strangers to slide their horses down the steep incline,
which produces a sound like subterranean thunder, which terrifies unaccustomed
animals. Besides this phenomenon, the mirage is often seen on the dry, hot soil,
and so perfectly, too, that strangers have been known to attempt to ride round
the large lake which they saw before them.

Pleasant as our mountain trip was, both in itself, and as a specimen of the way
in which foreigners recreate themselves on the islands, I was glad to get back
to the broad Waimea, on which long shadows of palms reposed themselves in the
slant sunshine, and in the short red twilight to arrive at this breezy height,
and be welcomed by a blazing fire.

Mrs. —, in speaking of the mode of living here, was telling me that on a recent
visit to England she felt depressed the whole time by what appeared to her “the
scarcity” in the country. I never knew the meaning of the Old Testament blessing
of “plenty” and “bread to the full” till I was in abundant Victoria, and it is
much the same here. At home we know nothing of this, which was one of the
chiefest of the blessings promised in the Old Testament. Its
genialising effect is very obvious. A man feels more
practically independent, I think, when he can say to all his friends, “Drop in
to dinner whenever you like,” than if he possessed the franchise six times over;
and people can indulge in hospitality and exercise
page: 314 the franchise, too, here, for meat is only twopence a
pound, and bananas can be got for the gathering. The ever-increasing cost of
food with us makes free-hearted hospitality an impossibility, and withers up all
those kindly instincts which find expression in housing and feeding both friends
and strangers.